Save caladium bulbs for more great garden color next year

I love caladiums as a summer bedding plant in shady areas. There are many different types, with different leaf shapes, heights and blends of colors such as red, rose, pink, white and green. They are among the most reliable plants for summer color in shady areas.

A great thing about using caladiums as a bedding plant is that you can get more than one year of colorful foliage for your initial investment.

Plantings of caladiums are getting past their prime now, and it's time to decide what you want to do with them. Your choices are: pull them up and throw them away, leave the tubers in the ground, or dig them up, store the tubers and plant them again next year.

Are the tubers worth saving?

Caladiums tolerate heavy shade, and some cultivars even do reasonably well in full sun, but they are at their best when planted where they receive part-shade to part-sun in beds enriched with organic matter that are kept evenly moist.

If you have provided them with the growing conditions they prefer this summer, your caladiums should have produced nice-sized tubers by this time (as big as or bigger than the ones you planted). These tubers can be used to grow caladiums next year, either left in the ground or stored and replanted.

If the growing conditions were not ideal (particularly if they were growing in dense, heavy shade or dry conditions), the quality of the tubers may have declined over the summer, and they may be too small to perform well next year. If that's the case, you may choose to discard them and purchase new tubers next spring.

Leave them in the ground

You may simply leave the caladium tubers in the ground if the bed where the caladiums are planted will stay relatively undisturbed and drains well. Keep the area mulched this winter to protect the tubers in case it is unusually cold. Because the ground here does not freeze, they will survive and come back up next year.

If the bed tends to stay wet during the winter, the tubers may rot, and it would be best to dig and store them. Generally speaking, experience shows that it is more reliable to dig and store caladium tubers over the winter than to leave them in the ground. But, feel free to give it a try.

Dig them up

If you intend to replant the area with cool-season bedding plants such as pansies, the tubers should be lifted and removed to allow you to do bed preparation for the new bedding plants.

Caladiums should be dug when a number of leaves turn yellow and most of the foliage begins to look "tired" and falls over. Do not wait until all of the foliage has disappeared, or you may have a hard time finding the tubers. This makes it more likely that you will accidentally dig into and damage the tubers, and more likely that you will miss some of the tubers and leave them behind.

We usually dig caladiums sometime between late September and mid-October. I have observed that it is common for caladiums planted later in the season to last longer in the landscape.

Use a shovel or a garden fork to lift the tubers, being careful not to damage them. Leave the foliage attached to the tubers, shake and brush off the soil, and lay them out in a dry location sheltered from rain (in a garage or under a carport). You can also place them, tubers down, in a bucket or large pot to save room. Don't pack them in too tightly.

Drying the tubers

Allow the tubers to dry until the foliage is tan and papery in appearance. This generally takes about 10 to 14 days. At that time, the foliage easily will separate from the tubers, leaving a cleanly healed scar. The tubers can then be cleaned by washing in water to remove any remaining soil adhering to them. Unless there is a large amount of soil clinging to them, simply brushing them off is enough. If you do wash them, they should be air-dried in a well-ventilated place for several days before storage, until the moisture has evaporated from the surface of the tubers.

Storing the tubers

When they are dry, they are ready for storing for the winter. Tubers that you may have accidentally damaged when digging can be saved if they have healed well and feel solid.

Place the healthy tubers in old nylon stockings, mesh bags (such as an onion or crawfish sack), paper bags or cardboard boxes. The idea is that the container should be able to breathe. Do not store the tubers in a plastic bag, as this may lead to rotting.

Make sure you keep the tubers in a location indoors where temperatures will stay above 70 degrees. Check the tubers occasionally and discard any that show signs of rot or have shriveled up.

When drying the tubers and storing them, it is a good idea to keep track of the different types you are growing and keep them separate. This will allow you to place groups of individual colors into the landscape where you want them to be next year. Label the bags that you store the tubers in with the name of the cultivar and the color, or at least the color.

Remember that with poor growing conditions, particularly in areas of heavy shade and or dry conditions, caladiums produce small, weak tubers that may not return well, either left in the ground or dug and stored.

Under the right circumstances and with proper care, however, the tubers you planted this year can provide a beautiful display again next year. And if you did a good job of growing them and the location was to their liking, the tubers should have increased in size.

That means the plants you get from them next year will likely be even bigger and nicer than this year's.

DAN GILL'S MAIL BOX

Is there a best time in the year to fill in low spots with pump sand in my yard? My lawn is very bumpy and I would like to make it level. I thought perhaps when the lawn goes dormant would be the best time. This would allow the pump sand the chance to settle in. Thanks for any advice.

Ed Frois

That is a very good question. Since we want the grass to rapidly grow up through the fill you spread over it, filling should only be done when the grass is in active growth and there is time for it to grow through the fill before cool weather of fall. So, the preferred times to fill over a lawn are late April/May to August/early September. Pump sand or river sand is recommended. At this point, you would want to fill as soon as possible, since fall has started. Filling over the lawn when it is dormant means it would spend the winter under a damp layer of fill, and this would not be healthy for the grass. So, I'm glad you asked.

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View full sizeSangjib Min/Newport News Daily Press/MCTIn south Louisiana, pomegranates generally are grown as ornamentals for their beautiful flowers, rather than their fruit.

When the pomegranates on my tree are in the ripening stage, I notice they begin to rot. They get brown, and when I cut into them they are a brown color and look nasty. They don't look healthy like ones from the store. I also have a problem with the black bugs with long legs that fly around in masses around the tree. They are landing on the fruit and sucking all the juice out. How can I remedy these problems? The trees are loaded with flowers but very few hold on. Can you tell me why?

Rose Musso

It's difficult to grow quality pomegranate fruit here. Mostly, it's the high humidity (which makes flowers fall off and encourages diseases in the fruit) and heavy summer rainfall that are major challenges. So, we generally grow pomegranates more as ornamentals for their beautiful flowers, rather than expecting regular production of quality fruit. Some years the fruit is better than others, but it's iffy. The insects are likely leaf footed bugs, and they can damage the fruit. They are hard to control, but you should be able to reduce the population with weekly sprays of permethrin.

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Every year I struggle with seedling trees in my flowerbeds. Often, by the time I notice them, they are too big for me to pull up. Is there a good solution, short of getting out the shovel?

Susan

Cut them off a few inches above the ground, and apply the herbicide triclopyr to the freshly cut surface of the stump. Look for products like Brush Killer, Brush B Gon, Cut Vine and Stump Killer and others. The herbicide will kill the tree and the stump will not resprout. It works beautifully.